Keeping historical artifacts in pristine condition
My family owns a company that most people have never even considered! They browse museums and mosques and observe the historical artifacts presented to them on a silver platter.
Without the work we do, you would be staring at withered, crinkled, and dust-ridden pages of some of the most sacred texts in history.
We are artifact preservers, and it has become a passion of mine. I even teach a course on this to museum staff. The first thing to think about preserving books is that you need a temperature-controlled environment. The a/c cannot blow cold air from a vent directly onto the text books! Cool air can cause the pages to become fragile and stiff, additionally, the furnace cannot blow direct heat to the books, because hot air can cause the pages to become wilted and soft too quickly. The temperature should be at a steady seventy-six degrees. This temperature should remain the same for as long as the books are in that space. It is highly encouraged that the a/c feeding your temperature-controlled room has a built-in whole-home air purifier that will cool the room and disinfect your air simultaneously, and particles in polluted air rest on top of the books and seep into the pages, discoloring them over time. A sterile environment with disinfect air is required for lifelong books. I’d recommend asking your heating and A/C tech if they have had experience installing a whole-home air purifier into the plan because you want to get this right the first time. Historical books can discolor easily quickly if the air is not purified right away. While it can be a tedious process, preserving books is fulfilling in the most unexpected ways. It gives us the opportunity to preserve our history, our ancestors and life as we think it.